Eight months later, Al Franken becomes a senator, giving Democrats a supermajority. The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday ruled Franken the winner of the state’s Senate race, and Norm Coleman, his predecessor, conceded. The extended battle shows that sometimes campaign staffs have to have unanticipated skills; Cillizza, in running down the factors that helped Franken win, notes that his staffers had a highly organized infrastructure that gave them a leg up during the recount process. Politico, meanwhile, takes the opposite view, examining why Coleman lost—largely money and considerations of his political future, it seems.The big read yesterday, though, was Todd Purdum’s epic Palin profile in Vanity Fair. Here at CI we enjoyed some of the back-room strategy revealed, including Mark McKinnon’s role in her VP debate prep; but ultimately the piece reveals not much new, eventually deteriorating into a catalog of recent news stories that show the Alaskan governor’s missteps. More interesting, really, is the fall out within the strategist community, and Politico picks up the sniping between various Republican operatives. (In other Palin news: She appears in a somewhat awkward Runner’s World photo spread.)Odds & Ends:
McCain and Feingold ride again!
Sanford cannot stop embarassing himself.